Coal Power Plants

 
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BigBarney
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Post by BigBarney » Tue. Jan. 30, 2018 5:20 pm

Here"s more proof...

"But market factors — including cheap natural gas and the growth of renewables — have taken their toll on the American coal industry regardless of regulations."

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/3553 ... wer-plants

"Coal will be the biggest victim, with 369 gigawatts of projects standing to be cancelled, according to BNEF. That’s about the entire generation capacity of Germany and Brazil combined."

http://www.post-gazette.com/powersource/companies ... 1706160141

"Some, like Energy Secretary Rick Perry, have argued that not only does the grid need fossil fuels, but coal plants that lose money in open markets need to be propped up to ensure the grid’s reliability."

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1 ... -cold-snap

There are reasons that the utilities trade power because they can buy cheaper than their plants can produce the power.

Here's a list of closures and the amount of coal burned per year....

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/04/24/us-coal-plan ... al-demand/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-t ... oal-plant/

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30812

One small coal power plant being built in Alaska where there is a limit on any other source.

BigBarney


 
Pacowy
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Post by Pacowy » Tue. Jan. 30, 2018 6:18 pm

I think you'll find the closures are primarily older, less efficient units that were marginal to begin with. NG knocked some of them out, and 8 years of Obama's war on coal created enough regulatory uncertainty that utility coal users have been discouraged from investing in newer, more efficient coal units. There are a lot of cheap btu's in places like the Powder River Basin, and your pie-in-the-sky projections by pseudo-environmentalists aren't going to make coal go away. Maybe when fusion gets harnessed; not from anything that has actually happened in wind/solar/etc.

Mike

 
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Berlin
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Post by Berlin » Wed. Feb. 28, 2018 8:29 pm

Ted,

Most of what you've posted isn't accurate. A lot of the articles are written by people who wouldn't know a power plant from a hole in the ground.
It's not the cost to generate power it's the cost to get it to the consumer from the VERY few plants that were unprofitable to operate. The pending threat of increased emission regulation and future expense has closed most of the plants that have been closed. Many older coal plants generate power for less cost than newer, more efficient, plants. More often than not around half the wholesale price of most Renewables. As far as it being soon, because it's definitely not now that they're at parity, I really doubt it will be in our lifetimes without subsidies. I do know the real numbers (which you won't find because most of them are proprietary) about Coal Fired power plants that have been built in the last 10 years as far as their cost and other things and I can assure you that Renewables aren't close.

 
Pacowy
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Post by Pacowy » Thu. Mar. 01, 2018 12:48 am

Berlin wrote:
Wed. Feb. 28, 2018 8:29 pm
It's not the cost to generate power it's the cost to get it to the consumer from the VERY few plants that were unprofitable to operate. The pending threat of increased emission regulation and future expense has closed most of the plants that have been closed. Many older coal plants generate power for less cost than newer, more efficient, plants.
I usually follow, and agree with, most of your posts, but I'm having trouble with this. In my day job I have done plenty of work for utilities and other power producers, and to me this misstates the roles of NG prices and regulatory uncertainty. I have even more trouble with the last sentence, which appears to be self-contradictory (i.e., since "more efficient" implies "less cost"). Could you please clarify what you're getting at? The last time I looked there is plenty of public domain info on powerplant closures, so no confidential info should be needed.

Thanks.

Mike

 
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BigBarney
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Post by BigBarney » Thu. Mar. 01, 2018 1:30 pm

Berlin:

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/the-stealth-nopr ... al/518177/

These plants that rely on fuel of any kind will be obsolete because the

renewables will be used everywhere with some type of storage.

First Energy tried to off load the Pleasants Power Station to the main company so

that they could include these cost of operation to the base rate in WV .

Now their near bankruptcy.

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/firstenergy-ceo- ... on/517743/

All of the sources I quote are from industry sources and the regulators who

govern their operations and I put quotes around their statements , my opinions are

always kept separate . Like this....

"Unless something is done to change the construct of these administrated markets which have been administrated in a way to disadvantaged coal and nuclear plants, over the long haul, unless the states step in to provide support, there will be no coal or nuclear plants left in these markets," Jones said.

Distribution is a different problem that will require extra time and study but it too will

be solved with modern technology.


BigBarney

 
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Post by samhill » Thu. Mar. 01, 2018 2:15 pm

I've had several years on the opposite end of coal burning power plants & can say that getting rid of the coal ash becomes a huge expense & most of which was the fault of the power plants not caring about where the ash goes for many decades. The same becomes true with the nukes, the spent fuel rods & water are going to be a problem with increasing expense forever. So unless a use for the waste that is far greater than the production both processes are doomed, better get used to it.

 
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Post by BigBarney » Thu. Mar. 01, 2018 3:54 pm

Use the Sun , no hauling in , hauling waste out , no disposal costs free and easy.

Long life and low maintenance and biggest deal no fuel to buy and transport.

Technology has improved so much it blows all others out of the market.

Look at Hawaii they are in a perfect situation but all of US will benefit if

they invest and develop what is there whether solar, wind,tides,or something

else.

https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/08/teslas-new-so ... -at-night/

There are at over 100% in some areas and have excess to charge batteries for night use...


BigBarney


 
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Post by Pacowy » Thu. Mar. 01, 2018 4:20 pm

samhill wrote:
Thu. Mar. 01, 2018 2:15 pm
I've had several years on the opposite end of coal burning power plants & can say that getting rid of the coal ash becomes a huge expense & most of which was the fault of the power plants not caring about where the ash goes for many decades. The same becomes true with the nukes, the spent fuel rods & water are going to be a problem with increasing expense forever. So unless a use for the waste that is far greater than the production both processes are doomed, better get used to it.
I don't think you can equate coal ash with nuclear waste. A lot of coal ash is beneficially recycled, and even Obama's EPA declined to treat it as hazardous. I think nuclear has a lot of those types of issues; coal not so much.

Mike

 
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Post by samhill » Thu. Mar. 01, 2018 4:51 pm

PA, a small % of coal ash is being used, no where near what is produced & it is just a ingredient that gets mixed with others. There are old hazardous fly ash dump sites all around any coal fired plants that are all filled so they even had to load barges then ship unload & then truck, not cheap. That doesn't begin to mention the illegal dumping that went on, I said I hope they find something useful to do with both, every once in awhile around Pittsburgh they get a landslide of it that the tax payer ends up paying for.

 
Pacowy
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Post by Pacowy » Thu. Mar. 01, 2018 5:41 pm

Sorry if PA is somehow behind the curve on this, but nationwide there is environmentally- and economically-sound recycling of a lot of coal combustion residual materials - https://www.epa.gov/coalash/coal-ash-reuse . For example, IIRC the inclusion of fly ash can strengthen concrete while reducing the need for cement production. Here in MA, I probably should patent my flexible flow pavement patch made primarily from bottom ash and fly ash. :yes:

Mike

 
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Post by BigBarney » Fri. Mar. 02, 2018 10:51 am

More bad news for coal plants...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/02/c ... ity%20Dive

"The documents show that Kemper’s design faced what proved to be an insurmountable issue: it required vastly more maintenance downtime than originally predicted, and according to one 2014 report would be offline 45% of its first five years rather than the 25% the company had publicly projected."

"Multiple forecasts showed that Kemper’s clean coal equipment could only be up and running a fraction of the time the company initially predicted. Repairs listed as taking four hours would actually shut coal power generation down for four weeks, a 2016 report warned."

Up time is less than solar and way more costly. This is the end of the line

for this technology , too complicated and maintenance too high.


BigBarney

 
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Post by franpipeman » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 8:51 am

To ignore renewables is unethical. Some folk don't factor that in their equations. Deaths from Black lung are increasing dramatically believe it or not. , Coal and other fossil will be a transitional fuel until we fine tune our energy infrastructure that will take a generation of humanity or more .I have to go take the ashes out now.

 
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Post by franpipeman » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 8:56 am


 
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Post by Pacowy » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 12:22 pm

Once upon a time all of the bright minds concluded that fusion would be harnessed and make electricity too cheap to meter, kicking all "transition" fossil fuels to the curb. Well the transition has taken longer than expected on that, as I expect it will with renewables. The gravity trains are interesting but the article made my head hurt when it said electric car batteries are going to put power into the grid at night. Uhhh, isn't that when they draw power so they can be used during the day? Some of these future scenarios may be interesting to imagine, but they would create all kinds of technical and other difficulties that their loud proponents don't seem to fully grasp.

I am not familiar with the Rick Perry proposal that keeps getting referenced, but I do believe that currently grid operators frequently enter "Reliability - Must Run" contracts that pay generators to keep peak power plants up and on stand-by, even if their output is not used. If the "big thinkers" are imagining that wind and solar are going to displace current baseload power, it's easy to see how the real-world people who actually keep the lights on would see a need for those baseload plants to still be kept in the bullpen, for those inconvenient times when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. If that's what Rick Perry was trying to get at, the people mocking him are revealing their own lack of understanding of the system they propose to change.

Mike

 
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Post by windyhill4.2 » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 1:20 pm

Pacowy wrote:
Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 12:22 pm
Once upon a time all of the bright minds concluded that fusion would be harnessed and make electricity too cheap to meter, kicking all "transition" fossil fuels to the curb. Well the transition has taken longer than expected on that, as I expect it will with renewables.




The gravity trains are interesting but the article made my head hurt when it said electric car batteries are going to put power into the grid at night. Uhhh, isn't that when they draw power so they can be used during the day? Some of these future scenarios may be interesting to imagine, but they would create all kinds of technical and other difficulties that their loud proponents don't seem to fully grasp.

I am not familiar with the Rick Perry proposal that keeps getting referenced, but I do believe that currently grid operators frequently enter "Reliability - Must Run" contracts that pay generators to keep peak power plants up and on stand-by, even if their output is not used. If the "big thinkers" are imagining that wind and solar are going to displace current baseload power, it's easy to see how the real-world people who actually keep the lights on would see a need for those baseload plants to still be kept in the bullpen, for those inconvenient times when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. If that's what Rick Perry was trying to get at, the people mocking him are revealing their own lack of understanding of the system they propose to change.

Mike
Good post,Pacowy.
Apparently most are either too young or have no working memory of the fact that it was said that nuclear powered power plants would cause electric to become FREE..... a simpleton can easily see how well that idea has worked out. :roll:

Dreamers can dream big things... it doesn't mean that all dreams will work into reality .


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